Ah, this essay was a total thrill to read! Being held -- carried by the world, held in the arms of trees, the arms of beloveds, the backs of rocks, the buoyancy of water -- is, for me, the central joy living. I felt held, here, in this essay, by the brilliant shifts of gentle unveiling, like passing through hands. Held and nourished by juicy bursts of revelation ( "maintenant" = held in the hand! omg, life-changing!) and stroked into relaxing, into knowing, into the kinship I find here. THANK YOU Caro, for these delicious words, and for being here in the now-time. Somewhere in this now-time I am in a fallow field in France, on my 17th trip around the sun, reading that poem by Blake and transfixed by awe and glee, ecstatic with recognition but also isolated by it. Thank you for this abundant broadcast, may it beam out in all directions! Thank you for holding us.
Illuminating, as always. I often wonder how 'embodied' an experience writing (as opposed to crafting) is for most authors – especially now that most of us write directly into a machine rather even than with a pen onto paper that is tactile ... But for me, writing is always an act of co-creation with the land – I'm 'translating' my relationship with it into words via the machine, but it always comes out of the land in the first place. To the extent that when I'm in a place I can't much relate to (as I am now) my imagination is often crippled. So when I'm sitting inside at a desk writing into a machine, I'm conjuring up images and stories from the land in my imagination, even if it doesn't seem directly relevant to what I'm writing about. If that makes sense :-)
It makes perfect sense, Sharon. I have an ongoing conversation about this with several writer friends, and over the years I have come to see three threads that can be plaited together to ensure an umbilical relation to the real for those necessarily engaged in touching machines so much, as I am too this week, for instance. Excuse long answer, as it's an important issue.
1: A daily life beyond the laptop / array of machines. So many things achieved by laptop that were once made of many 'receive-only / not mediate' devices, at least partially convivial machines, for instance in recording studios, where we had racks of effects with hundreds of movable connection wires, huge two inch tape recorders, massive mixing desks which the whole band would lean over - all hands needed on deck, during mixdown. Now everything is achieved by one person sitting still with a laptop much like our own ones. So many people sit all day at a screen and go home to 'relax' sitting still at a screen. The content is not the issue, it is the imprisonment of the body in an experiential jail the person does not even notice because the brain box is either being entertained or thinking it's doing something very important. I am with Robert Anton Wilson here - be kind to the animal! I (literally) 'take the animal for walks'. My lockdown regime never ended, I decided I had caged my creature-being somewhat, even as a then T'ai Chi teacher. So, I do not worry for you on point no 1, as I know you walk your dogs and yourself, cook, craft and ponder, away from the 'sit still next to a machine' confinement. I always ask myself - have I made natural movements today, or did they all service machines? [side note, contemporary gyms are to me pastiches of Victorian workhouse and factory movements. Amazing that people pay for this. I should have given them flat caps and endless sweet tea and they could have helped me carry the 20kg sacks of coal to my boat every week, and paid me their gym membership fees for the pleasure.]
2: Long breaks from electronic devices with screens. I think this should be self explanatory. But anyway, devices without screens, such as radios, mp3 players (remember those) and even 'brick' style mobile phones do not force us into immobility. We can listen and walk, or talk and walk, if we wish. But when we stare at a screen we must either be still, or be oblivious, and the upshot of either is eventually disastrous. Also, we must look away from the world and those around us and look into it, which is not convivial, not semi-permeable (to use Iain McGilchrist's great term) and measurably decreases right hemisphere stimulation. So, whole days or weeks at a time not looking at screens is the medicine. I have not brought up the usual 'attention economy' points here, as they are well raised elsewhere. My compassion is also for the impoverished mammalian reality of humans.
When I look at dogs racing along the beach and rolling on the sand I feel animal pangs. In my private physical life, I am doing much to work on and address this, and in the Spring I will write about it here, when I have useful words for my findings.
3: Knowing why we are using a device, aka mental hygiene. This is the one I find the hardest, as it is easy for me to go dance in the kitchen while I make soup, or go for a walk, as I live in a peaceful enough place, many don't. But I still have so many excuses to be here, many of them to do with making a living. This is the insidious trap. The reasons we give ourselves to look at this glowing screen. I don't need to tell anyone reading this how easy it is to think of innumerable good reasons why we will continue to be online / on screen. Mark Boyle, of 'The Moneyless Man' and 'The Way Home' is the only westerner I know to have followed the ramifications of this to it's logical conclusion, and then arranged his life accordingly, without contemporary technology. But also, when you are conjuring words from the mythic, from the real, when we are translating from nature to language, when we are writing with the sincere wish to aid the wellbeing of people, such as journalists uncovering corruption, we are doing work for a good reason. Then we need to be super scrupulous about making sure we allow 'the creature' time in natural movement, away from fixing the eyes on flat, glowing rectangles. Screen life is not freedom, it's consensual confinement. And I am beginning to feel the immobility and acquired physical ill-being that it cultivates are as important as the vast array of ideologies that capture people on here. As when any of the 'sides' finally allow their bodies out onto the street, they seem more aggressive and coercive than ever before. The caged animal will seek an outlet for natural movement or go mad.
This was all laid out in Orwell's '1984', but most people focus on the ideological aspects, which are rightly lauded. Between 1984 and E M Forster's 1914 story 'The Machine Stops', we have the most prescient guide to our current physically embodied lives. Mine too, at this precise moment. As your comment drew me to my screen and I have yet to eat my breakfast. Poor, hungry creature Caro, it is time to make her/me some food. So as ever, I write for me, rather than to tell anyone else what to do. Love to you, Sharon. Stomp on the mudstone awhile until you can reunite with granite.
'When I look at dogs racing along the beach and rolling on the sand I feel animal pangs.' You remind me of this poem from Mary Oliver, which has me weeping every time. Love back to you, wisest of women.
‘Straight Talk from Fox’
Listen says fox it is music to run
over the hills to lick
dew from the leaves to nose along
the edges of the ponds to smell the fat
ducks in their bright feathers but
far out, safe in their rafts of
sleep. It is like
music to visit the orchard, to find
the vole sucking the sweet of the apple, or the
rabbit with his fast-beating heart. Death itself
is a music. Nobody has ever come close to
writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot
be told. It is flesh and bones
changing shape and with good cause, mercy
is a little child besides such an invention. It is
music to wander the black back roads
outside of town no one awake or wondering
if anything miraculous is ever going to
happen, totally dumb to the fact of every
moment’s miracle. Don’t think I haven’t
peeked into windows. I see you in all your seasons
That's a great one! I don't know many of her poems, despite their ubiquity in people's hearts. I became poem-shy some years ago and am finding my way back through writing my own. Thanks for this x
What I love about your work (and books) is how the practical is informed by and feeds back into the research and translation from original sources that you do. I have several friends from the field of experimental archaeology, and they are similarly scholarly and practical. There need be no schism between the world of the word and the life of the hand.
I have read many excerpts and they were all good. He is a friend of several friends but I have only met him in passing at Dark Mountain events, so far. His newest book is also supposed to be great. For reasons of lack of 1, time and 2, money, actual books by other people have been somewhat meagre the last 3 years. I am hard at work attempting to rectify this.
Ah, this essay was a total thrill to read! Being held -- carried by the world, held in the arms of trees, the arms of beloveds, the backs of rocks, the buoyancy of water -- is, for me, the central joy living. I felt held, here, in this essay, by the brilliant shifts of gentle unveiling, like passing through hands. Held and nourished by juicy bursts of revelation ( "maintenant" = held in the hand! omg, life-changing!) and stroked into relaxing, into knowing, into the kinship I find here. THANK YOU Caro, for these delicious words, and for being here in the now-time. Somewhere in this now-time I am in a fallow field in France, on my 17th trip around the sun, reading that poem by Blake and transfixed by awe and glee, ecstatic with recognition but also isolated by it. Thank you for this abundant broadcast, may it beam out in all directions! Thank you for holding us.
What a wise younger you are!
Younger! I like that. A little sweeter than 'baby crone', which is what I call myself sometimes.
Illuminating, as always. I often wonder how 'embodied' an experience writing (as opposed to crafting) is for most authors – especially now that most of us write directly into a machine rather even than with a pen onto paper that is tactile ... But for me, writing is always an act of co-creation with the land – I'm 'translating' my relationship with it into words via the machine, but it always comes out of the land in the first place. To the extent that when I'm in a place I can't much relate to (as I am now) my imagination is often crippled. So when I'm sitting inside at a desk writing into a machine, I'm conjuring up images and stories from the land in my imagination, even if it doesn't seem directly relevant to what I'm writing about. If that makes sense :-)
It makes perfect sense, Sharon. I have an ongoing conversation about this with several writer friends, and over the years I have come to see three threads that can be plaited together to ensure an umbilical relation to the real for those necessarily engaged in touching machines so much, as I am too this week, for instance. Excuse long answer, as it's an important issue.
1: A daily life beyond the laptop / array of machines. So many things achieved by laptop that were once made of many 'receive-only / not mediate' devices, at least partially convivial machines, for instance in recording studios, where we had racks of effects with hundreds of movable connection wires, huge two inch tape recorders, massive mixing desks which the whole band would lean over - all hands needed on deck, during mixdown. Now everything is achieved by one person sitting still with a laptop much like our own ones. So many people sit all day at a screen and go home to 'relax' sitting still at a screen. The content is not the issue, it is the imprisonment of the body in an experiential jail the person does not even notice because the brain box is either being entertained or thinking it's doing something very important. I am with Robert Anton Wilson here - be kind to the animal! I (literally) 'take the animal for walks'. My lockdown regime never ended, I decided I had caged my creature-being somewhat, even as a then T'ai Chi teacher. So, I do not worry for you on point no 1, as I know you walk your dogs and yourself, cook, craft and ponder, away from the 'sit still next to a machine' confinement. I always ask myself - have I made natural movements today, or did they all service machines? [side note, contemporary gyms are to me pastiches of Victorian workhouse and factory movements. Amazing that people pay for this. I should have given them flat caps and endless sweet tea and they could have helped me carry the 20kg sacks of coal to my boat every week, and paid me their gym membership fees for the pleasure.]
2: Long breaks from electronic devices with screens. I think this should be self explanatory. But anyway, devices without screens, such as radios, mp3 players (remember those) and even 'brick' style mobile phones do not force us into immobility. We can listen and walk, or talk and walk, if we wish. But when we stare at a screen we must either be still, or be oblivious, and the upshot of either is eventually disastrous. Also, we must look away from the world and those around us and look into it, which is not convivial, not semi-permeable (to use Iain McGilchrist's great term) and measurably decreases right hemisphere stimulation. So, whole days or weeks at a time not looking at screens is the medicine. I have not brought up the usual 'attention economy' points here, as they are well raised elsewhere. My compassion is also for the impoverished mammalian reality of humans.
When I look at dogs racing along the beach and rolling on the sand I feel animal pangs. In my private physical life, I am doing much to work on and address this, and in the Spring I will write about it here, when I have useful words for my findings.
3: Knowing why we are using a device, aka mental hygiene. This is the one I find the hardest, as it is easy for me to go dance in the kitchen while I make soup, or go for a walk, as I live in a peaceful enough place, many don't. But I still have so many excuses to be here, many of them to do with making a living. This is the insidious trap. The reasons we give ourselves to look at this glowing screen. I don't need to tell anyone reading this how easy it is to think of innumerable good reasons why we will continue to be online / on screen. Mark Boyle, of 'The Moneyless Man' and 'The Way Home' is the only westerner I know to have followed the ramifications of this to it's logical conclusion, and then arranged his life accordingly, without contemporary technology. But also, when you are conjuring words from the mythic, from the real, when we are translating from nature to language, when we are writing with the sincere wish to aid the wellbeing of people, such as journalists uncovering corruption, we are doing work for a good reason. Then we need to be super scrupulous about making sure we allow 'the creature' time in natural movement, away from fixing the eyes on flat, glowing rectangles. Screen life is not freedom, it's consensual confinement. And I am beginning to feel the immobility and acquired physical ill-being that it cultivates are as important as the vast array of ideologies that capture people on here. As when any of the 'sides' finally allow their bodies out onto the street, they seem more aggressive and coercive than ever before. The caged animal will seek an outlet for natural movement or go mad.
This was all laid out in Orwell's '1984', but most people focus on the ideological aspects, which are rightly lauded. Between 1984 and E M Forster's 1914 story 'The Machine Stops', we have the most prescient guide to our current physically embodied lives. Mine too, at this precise moment. As your comment drew me to my screen and I have yet to eat my breakfast. Poor, hungry creature Caro, it is time to make her/me some food. So as ever, I write for me, rather than to tell anyone else what to do. Love to you, Sharon. Stomp on the mudstone awhile until you can reunite with granite.
'When I look at dogs racing along the beach and rolling on the sand I feel animal pangs.' You remind me of this poem from Mary Oliver, which has me weeping every time. Love back to you, wisest of women.
‘Straight Talk from Fox’
Listen says fox it is music to run
over the hills to lick
dew from the leaves to nose along
the edges of the ponds to smell the fat
ducks in their bright feathers but
far out, safe in their rafts of
sleep. It is like
music to visit the orchard, to find
the vole sucking the sweet of the apple, or the
rabbit with his fast-beating heart. Death itself
is a music. Nobody has ever come close to
writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot
be told. It is flesh and bones
changing shape and with good cause, mercy
is a little child besides such an invention. It is
music to wander the black back roads
outside of town no one awake or wondering
if anything miraculous is ever going to
happen, totally dumb to the fact of every
moment’s miracle. Don’t think I haven’t
peeked into windows. I see you in all your seasons
making love, arguing, talking about God
as if he were an idea instead of the grass,
instead of the stars, the rabbit caught
in one good teeth-whacking hit and brought
home to the den. What I am, and I know it, is
responsible, joyful, thankful. I would not
give my life for a thousand of yours.
From Red Bird Poems (Beacon Press, 2008).
That's a great one! I don't know many of her poems, despite their ubiquity in people's hearts. I became poem-shy some years ago and am finding my way back through writing my own. Thanks for this x
Thank you for this! I wholeheartedly agree, this culture has no idea what it has thrown away.
What I love about your work (and books) is how the practical is informed by and feeds back into the research and translation from original sources that you do. I have several friends from the field of experimental archaeology, and they are similarly scholarly and practical. There need be no schism between the world of the word and the life of the hand.
Thank you! Yes, we are meant to be whole. It's too easy to drift into fantasy when not rooted in fact.
That reference to 'being a beast'... Charles Foster wrote an acclaimed book with that as the title. Have you read it and if so do you recommend it?
I have read many excerpts and they were all good. He is a friend of several friends but I have only met him in passing at Dark Mountain events, so far. His newest book is also supposed to be great. For reasons of lack of 1, time and 2, money, actual books by other people have been somewhat meagre the last 3 years. I am hard at work attempting to rectify this.